Is 2017 The Year of 3D Geo?

LiDAR scanning has captured the Forth Bridges in stunning 3D resolution and is being shared across educational bodies for use in interactive games, apps and virtual reality tours.

The work, reported by the BBC yesterday, is in partnership with the Centre for Digital Documentation and Visualisation is a partnership between The Glasgow School of Art and Historic Environment Scotland, known as the Scottish Ten Project, which aims “to create accurate 3D data to help with their conservation and management, their interpretation and virtual access.”

The initiative is providing these datasets to encourage more interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) careers amongst young Scots and heralds an exciting time for 3D geospatial technology.

With the arrival of next generation high resolution aerial imagery from satellites and drones, alongside the continued advances in open source tools such as CesiumJS, LASTools and Mapbox’s new 3D features… is 2017 shaping up to be the year in which 3D geospatial goes mainstream?